Lately since I finally found a suitable load for my Savage Striker, with some help from members here, I decided to take my groundhog hunting to a different level. Hunting with my Rem .22-250 was nice and easy but I was looking for a challenge. So for now my rifle sits while I put the Savage through its paces and it's working out great!

The fields around here a just littered with groundhogs and the farmers eagerly welcome me so I do my best to accomodate them It's not uncommon for me to sit in a bean field and shoot a dozen of them in a couple of hours. Sometimes I wonder if they're raising them!

Anyway, this past weekend I headed out to the fields and since we haven't had much rain the beans are pretty much stunted which made hunting the varmints even easier. I took a friend with me to cover the longer shots, +350yds while I picked off the closer ones. I'm limiting myself for now since the light slugs drops like a rock.

Here are some pics from my longest shot to date at a ranged @350yds. They're from my camera phone so they're not suitable for framing

This is a view of the field to my right which runs about 425yds to the woods. In front of me the range runs around 250yds to 300yds and to the left it stretches out to 725yds. We stay against the side of the hill so we aren't silhouetted with the sky behind us and we can pretty much cover most of this side of the field.

The line is approx where this foolish groundhog decided to stand up for me.


This is a photo looking back where we were sitting.


And this is what I saw though my scope, at least for a couple of minutes.


I'm still working on a heavier load to see if I can reach out a little farther but for now I'm happy. And so are the farmers!

DEC!! Congrats on finding out about the thrills of the bolt action, pistols and varminting!! I shoot a lot of the little varmints with the .204,.260,.25-06, 6mm,17HMR, but the really fun ones are the ones with the XP-100's in 7BR or .223 and the STRIKER in 17HMR!! My longest measured one shot, one dead groundhog was 376 yards with a 7BR topped with a Bushnell Holosight!! .........go ahead and say it..........."the horseshoe was elbow deep up my butt for that one!!" 150-275 yard shots were common using that set-up. The little STRIKER 17HMR has a personal best of 122 yards. All be it, it is fun to hunt them with quality handguns!! Charlie (Groundhog Devastation(GHD))

DEC, Great post, thanks

Thanks Charlie! I used to hunt them with various barrels on my Contenders but I haven't touched them in years. I'm literally having a blast with this thing. At the report the gun came up an all I heard was "you hit him!" about three times. After I found him in the scope again all I could see was his tail waving bye, bye. Who knows, I may not take my rifle out this year.

I leave the magnification turned up on 12X but with the small field of view and laying down on uneven ground it's tough to pick them up sometimes. What I'd like to find is a rifle scope with at least a fixed 12x with a little more than 4" of eye relief.

Pistol Scopes take some getting used to to say the least!! I'll never forget the first groundhog I was trying to get in the crosshair of a 3-9 Burris handgun scope with my daughter(Miss GHD..an accomplished varmint hunter herself!) at 225 yards on an XP .223!! She kept saying, "DADDY!! Shoot him!! He's going to go in!! DADDY! Why aren't you shooting him?? DADDY!! Do I have to shoot him with the 17!!!???? Bout that time, BOOM!! Dead Groundhog!! But the pistol scopes are different!! The only thing that comes to mind that is close to this in "gathering sight picture" is the FIXED rifle scopes in high magnification as in 24-36X! They can be something to get used to also!! GHD PS: What part of Ohio are you from??

Why do you have to stay so far away , are you afraid of them ?? I sneak up on them to within 40 yds and take them with a 40 or 45 or even 22 lr with iron sights !!

GHD I live about 1hr east of Columbus in the middle of no where. I LIKE it!

mete when you've got your butt planted in the middle of a 178 acre field with the cover of 3" high soybeans scattered about it's pretty hard to do any sneaking. You may as well be doing this in the field They've got keen eye sight and if they've been shot at before they don't wait around for a second look.

Besides, corn stubble is hard on these old elbows.

Seriously though, with the groundhogs tenacity if it were the size of a dog I'd be hunting them with something much larger and hiding. They are down right nasty when they are pissed and start chattering their teeth!

Looks like a blast!

I shot at a pigeon when I first got my 454 Casull but I missed Still funny though

I'm with you guys, varmint hunting with a rifle is fun, but with a handgun it's really a blast. I just tried it this year when I bought a S&W 686. I sighted it in the 1st day I had it and took it for a little stroll where I thought I could get some closer shooting in, and I ended up killing the 1st hog I saw at around 45 yards. Biggest hog I killed all summer, too! How did you guys do the rest of the summer with your pistols?

Specialty Pistols is the way i like to hunt myself. Just had a 20 BR XP built up for coyotes this yr., and looking forward to the season. For late season dogs it's my Savage Striker 243 WSSM/115 Berger or DTAC with the 4.5-14X VX-III VH reticle/turrets. Also have a 6.5 WSM XP just built that'll be another long-range coyote sniper with the 8.5-25X Leup. Mk 4 TMR reticle.

Couple years ago my HG shooting partner killed a 1590 yd. pr. dog on the 9th shot using a 6-284 XP/115 DTAC bullet/8.5-25X Leup. M4 again. I was sitting behind him with my Big Eyes spotting scope binocular system when i saw it happen. Couldn't believe it although trying to get a "world record" was the whole idea behind the shoot.

Buddy Ray Prager from Denver killed 2 650 yd. pr. dogs in a row, and 1 @ 775 using his custom .223 AI Contenders/75 A-Max/8-32X Burris BMD/turret Black Diamond. Was spotting again with my Big Eyes for those shots 2 years ago.

We actually do long-range handgun shooting seminars occasionally in NE or CO taking over for Don Bower's seminars.

Take a look at the Guns magazine Annual that just came out for Mark Hamton's article on long-range HG's. My partner's 7mm Dakota XP is in there with a McMillan stock/8.5-25X Leup./200 gr. Wildcat combination that he used to take a 666 yd. cow elk last season. Several of his other guns are in there also.

U guys need to take a good look at Rich Mertz' 1000 yd. HG comp. that he's putting on every year now up in Sundance WY. www.moaguns.com

...nothing quite like the factory Stikers tho. Dang they're accurate...an i bet hell on chucks.

Shooting the pistols is a fun change!!! On September 7, 2007 I made my longest, measured, witnessed kill on a groundhog with the rifle(3 witnesses) of 787 yards and that was fun! BUT a little later in the day after extolling the virtues of the BURRIS BALLIXTIC PLEX reticle and having one mounted on an original .223 XP-100 and finging a groundhog at 391 yards(that I could have killed with the .204,( but those short shots are mundane now or the .260 Heavy, why waste an AMax??) I leveled the XP across my Tripod rest and proceeded to "read the wind just a bit off!!" Missed him by less than 1/2" in front of his nose(he was prone and feeding) using the 50 grain bulk FEDERAL loadings that come 200 in a pack!! If I had made that shot, it would have been more special than the 787 kill!! My longest confirmed witnessed kill(with a handgun)(and the horseshoe was elbow deep that day!!) was a 376 yard kill in PA using an XP in 7BR equipped with a Bushnell Holosite!! It's fun to do this stuff with the handguns!! I shot the .223 today at 100,200 and 300yards on paper, and using that FEDERAL ammo and the Burris Ballistic Plex, it's on the money!!! Playing the wind is fun!! Any of you have any of the SAVAGE SRIKERS in 17HMR??? I shoot one of them also!! And today it turned in 2 groups at 100 yards(Burris 3-12 with target turrets, not BP) using both the 17 grain Hornady load and 20 grain Hornady load under 3/4 inch at 100!! The Post Office is cosed tomorrow so I won't get a T/C frame that I bought until Tuesday!! But when it gets here there is a .222Remington barrel ready to be affixed to it and that may require another one of the wonderfully amazing BURRIS BALLISTIC PLEX scopes! (I'll sell the Leupold 2X that I have now and never look back!!) GHD